The volume profile: where price was accepted
Reading a chart · OnlyTrade trading school
Turn volume sideways — how much traded at each PRICE instead of at each moment — and the market's own map appears. Wide rows are prices both sides agreed on for a long time; thin rows are prices that were rejected in minutes. The widest row is the POC, the point of control, and the band holding 70% of the volume is the value area. Price leaving a value area and coming back to its edge is one of the most common setups there is; price falling into a thin patch usually travels through it fast, because there is nothing there to slow it down. The app draws four windows at once so you can see whether today's busy price is also the year's.
About this lesson
Written by the OnlyTrade team as a general explanation of a market mechanic. It uses no live market data.
Education, not investment advice. No method or result is guaranteed, and trading can lose money. Read the Risk Disclosure.